#photojournalism

#photojournalism

In October 2025, New York published a series of photographs taken by Stephanie Keith inside of 26 Federal Plaza, where, for months, migrants appearing for routine court hearings were, seemingly at random, detained by federal officers. Keith spent most days stationed in the hallways of the 12th and 14th floors, watching as people arrived, stepped inside their respective courtrooms, and, upon exiting, were muscled away by agents.

The Washington Post has laid off Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee and made sweeping employee cuts across its Arts section in what's been described as a "bloodbath" at the Jeff Bezos-owned paper. All of the paper's staff photographers were also eliminated, raising questions about the future of the paper's visual strategy. Staffers began receiving layoff notices on Wednesday, February 4, after weeks of rumors of a mass downsizing.

Ramos is a Barcelona-based staff photographer for Getty Images, with a career spanning news, international conflicts, and high-profile sports coverage-including the Winter Olympics. Ramos received an Award of Excellence in the Sports Photographer of the Year category for his full portfolio of sports coverage from 2023, including the World Athletic Championships, Tour de France, Alpine Ski World Cup Finals, surfing sessions in Portugal, and more.

The brutal crackdown in Iran, ICE in Minneapolis, Russian aistrikes in Kyiv and heavy rain in Gaza the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists

Forget the film camera revival that never quite materialized at scale. The defining hardware trend of 2026 will be the continued adoption of C2PA (Content Credentials) signing in camera bodies beyond the flagship tier. Leica and Nikon have been early movers here, with Sony engaged in the broader Content Credentials ecosystem. This year, we are likely to see signing capabilities expand from flagship and select professional models into higher-volume lines as implementation costs fall and workflow integration matures.

After working as an editor in New York City for several years, my then-wife got offered a job in Singapore. It was the golden opportunity we both wanted. What we thought would be a posting of just a few years turned into decades. We divorced in 2011, but both stayed in Singapore, building our careers and lives. Singapore was the jolt my career needed I'd always wanted to be a photojournalist, so in 2000 I decided to pursue it full-time.

The 2025 Refocus International Photographer of the Year Awards reaffirmed the platform's status as a leading showcase for contemporary photography, highlighting work that transcends borders and cultures. This year's winners delivered not just images but deeply human stories, ranging from raw street moments to bold conceptual pieces. Canadian photographer Luke Gram earned the top honor for his series "Humanity Within the Architecture of Control," a subtle yet powerful exploration of everyday life inside North Korea that reveals how individuality persists within rigid systems.

As the year draws to a close, photographs offer us a way to look back at the moments that defined the year. This collection brings together images made by NPR photojournalists working in communities across the country, photographers who are documenting moments both consequential and quietly human throughout the year. These images don't just cover the year's biggest headlines, though, they linger on scenes, sometimes not widely known, that stayed with the people behind the cameras.

Over the course of 2025, millions of images have been filed through our picture system from agencies who cover news all over the world. The images taken by their teams of photojournalists, filed through local editors and international desk editors, are a mainstay of our coverage of international news, and enable the production of reactive news stories as well as features and visual essays.

There haven't been many slow news days in 2025, a year which further highlighted how increasingly divided our world - and, indeed, our country - is becoming. But the busy news cycle was also filled with stories that unite us, such as the 96th-minute goal from Troy Parrott that served to give the entire country a badly-needed lift last month.

While Derby's photograph of a child dreaming of play is resonant for its tender simplicity, this era was marked by very different images of life in Mississippi, from the indelible photos of the open-casket funeral of Emmett Till in Chicago in 1955 to the iconic images of the 1963 lunch counter sit-ins in Jackson. Photojournalistic images spanning more than a decade covering protests, demonstrations, and demands for justice became trenchant reminders of the social and political tumult of the time.

In 2019, a revolution fueled by deep-seated discontent precipitated a coup to remove then-president of Sudan, Omar al-Bashir. Then in 2021, the military led another coup to take control of the government. In April 2023, all-out civil war erupted between rival military groups who sought to control the government: the country's armed forces and a paramilitary group called Rapid Support Forces (RSF). All results of decades of tensions, the evolving and disastrous struggle continues today.

Mamdani's run was barely a blip then, but Califano sensed the swell of something shifting. He asked Mamdani's communications director if he could follow the campaign behind the scenes (and on his own dime) for a long-term documentary project. They said yes, and over the next nine months, Califano embedded himself within Zohran's team, photographing everything from union rallies to neighborhood canvassers to Ramadan iftars among aunties. He burned through more than 100 rolls of film in the process.

Lex Carthur is a director who does what he knows, which is a lot. Beginning as an artist then moving to photography, then falling in love with photojournalism, Lex has only continued to expand artistically with over a hundred jobs under his belt for clients such as Nike, Adidas, Sports Direct, Salomon and Vans. Interested in sports and culture and top tier athletes and those who rise to the top despite everything, Lex's work gets into the deeper layer,

War photographers are not meant to reach 90. Fate has had my life in its hands, says Don McCullin. Over his seven-decade career covering wars, famines and disasters McCullin has been captured, and escaped snipers, mortar fire and more. How does it feel to be a survivor? Uncomfortable, he says. No wonder he finds solace in the beautiful still lifes he creates in his shed, or in the images he composes in the countryside around his Somerset home.

PARIS -- It was shortly after the stunning heist of the crown jewels at the Louvre when Paris-based Associated Press photographer Thibault Camus caught in his frame a dapperly dressed young man walking by uniformed French police officers, their car blocking one of the museum gates. Instinctively, he took the shot. It wasn't a particularly great photo, with someone's shoulder obscuring part of the foreground, Camus told himself.

The Louvre heist, daily life in Gaza, Russian strikes on Kyiv and sumo in London: the past seven days as captured by the world's leading photojournalists

Cartier-Bresson once famously said that his Leica "became the extension of [his] eye, prowling the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to 'trap life'-to preserve life in the act of living." That's a little harder to accomplish with Leica's new camera. Today, Leica is launching the M EV1. It's the first M camera with a digital viewfinder, meaning the M's most distinct asset-its beautiful optical viewfinder-is no more.

"When I saw that photo, I felt it to my core,"

Rodrigo Moya, who died July 30 at 91, was one of Mexico's most versatile and renowned photojournalists, capturing vulnerable moments of celebrities and public figures.

Gibson reflects on his early struggles with photography in the 1960s, emphasizing the importance of social relevance in his art and personal evolution as an artist.

In Jakarta, the phenomenon of 'manusia silver' illustrates how the inhabitants adapt to economic hardship, with some earning up to 200,000 rupiah on good days.

Claude Salhani's journey as a photojournalist during Lebanon’s civil war captures the intense brutality of conflict, but ultimately led him to step away from the turmoil.